“The Bolsheviks are to blame for everything”—this is
agreed on both by the Cadets, who are leading the counter
revolution, and by the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks,
who call themselves “revolutionary
democrats”, probably because of their pretty little bloc’s
daily departures from the principles of democracy and
revolution.

“The Bolsheviks are to blame for everything”—for the
growing economic dislocation, against which no measures are
being taken, for the poor state of food supplies, and for the
“failure” of the Provisional Government over the
Ukraine and Finland. You might well imagine that an evil
Bolshevik had wormed his way into the midst of the modest,
moderate,
prudent Finns and “misled” the whole people!

The universal howl of anger and fury against the Bolsheviks,
the dirty slander campaign carried on by the dirty Zaslavskys
and the anonymous writers of Rech and Rabochaya
Gazeta all indicate a desire, inevitable with
representatives of a disorderly revolution, to vent their anger
on
someone over certain of their policy “failures”.

The Cadets are the party of the counter-revolutionary
bourgeoisie. This has even been admitted by the Socialist-
Revolutionary and Menshevik ruling bloc, which declared in a
resolution passed by the Congress of Soviets that the resistance
of the propertied classes is growing and that it constitutes the
backbone of the counter-revolution. Yet this bloc, which
Rech accuses daily of lack of character, has in turn
formed a bloc with the Cadets and, moreover, a most original
bloc, confirmed by the composition of the Provisional
Government!

Russia is ruled by two blocs: the bloc of the Socialist
Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, and the bloc of this bloc
with the Cadets, who constitute a bloc with all the political
parties to the right of them. The inevitable result is a
disorderly revolution, for all parts of this ruling “bloc of
blocs” are loose.

The Cadets have no faith in their own republicanism, arid this
applies even more to the
Octobrists[1]
and the
monarchists of other shades who are now hiding behind the Cadets
and
voting for them. The Cadets have no faith in the “social
bloc people”, and they willingly use the Ministers of that
bloc as errand boys for all kinds of “pacification”
even as they hiss in anger and indignation at the
“excessive demands” of the mass of peasants and the
section of workers who have now entrusted themselves to the
Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks in response to pompous
promises (“to satisfy the working people without offending
the capitalists”) but who are impudent enough to expect and
demand the actual fulfilment of these promises!

The social-bloc people have no faith in each other: the
Socialist-Revolutionaries have no faith in the Mensheviks, and
vice versa. So far neither “spouse” has ventured an
explicit and frank public statement, made officially and in a
principled manner, as to how, why, for what purpose and to what
extent the adherents of a Struvean “Marxism” and the
advocates of the “right to the land” have
united. Unity is bursting at the seams even within each of the
two “spouses”; the Socialist-Revolutionary Congress
black-balled Kerensky by a vote of 136 to 134, which led to the
withdrawal of
“Grandmother”[2]
herself from the Central
Committee and to the Central Committee clarification saying that
Kerensky had not been elected only because he was over burdened
(unlike Chernov) with ministerial duties. The
“Right” Socialist-Revolutionaries of Volya
Naroda revile their party and its congress, and the Lefts,
who have taken refuge in Zemlya i
Volya,[3]
have the
audacity to maintain that the masses do not want this war, which
they continue to regard as an imperialist war.

The Right wing of the Mensheviks has migrated to Dyen;
it is headed by Potresov, at whom “love’s tender
glances” are cast by Yedinstvo itself (which only
recently, during the Petrograd elections, was in a bloc with the
whole Menshevik party). The Left wing is sympathetic to
internationalism and is founding its own paper. A bloc of the
banks and the
Potresovs through Dyen; a bloc of all the Mensheviks,
including Potresov and Martov, through a “united”
Menshevik party.

“Defencism” is doing a poor job of concealing this
disorderly revolution, for even now, even after the resumption
of the imperialist war, even amid the ecstatic cries evoked by
the offensive, the “offensive” of Potresov’s
followers against his opponents in one alliance, and of
Kerensky’s followers against his opponents in the other
alliance, has gained in intensity.

The “revolutionary democrats” no longer believe in
the revolution. They are afraid of democracy. They fear a break
with the Anglo-French capitalists more than anything else and
they fear the displeasure of the Russian
capitalists. (“Our revolution is a bourgeois
revolution”—Minister Chernov “himself” has
come to believe in this “truth”, so amusingly
distorted by Dan, Tsereteli, and Skobelev.) The Cadets hate the
revolution and democracy.

The universal savage howl of anger and fury against the
Bolsheviks is a common complaint by the Cadets, Socialist-
Revolutionaries and Mensheviks about their own looseness.

They are in the majority. They are in power. They have formed a
bloc with one another. And they see that nothing comes of their
efforts!! How can they help raging against the Bolsheviks?

The revolution has posed problems of unusual difficulty, of
colossal importance, of world-wide scope. It is impossible
either to cope with economic dislocation or to break free from
the terrible grip of the imperialist war without taking the most
drastic revolutionary measures that will be backed by the
unbounded heroism of the oppressed and exploited and without
them trusting and supporting their organised vanguard, the
proletariat.

The masses are still looking for the “easiest” way
out—through the bloc of the Cadets with the bloc of the
Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks.

Notes

[1]The Octobrists were members of the Octobrist Party (or Union of
October 17), founded in Russia upon the publication of the tsar’s
manifesto of October 17 (30), 1905. The party was counter–
revolutionary and defended the interests of the big bourgeoisie and of the
landed proprietors farming on capitalist lines. It was led by
A. I. Guchkov, a noted industrialist and house-owner in Moscow,
and M. V. Rodzyanko, a big landowner. The Octobrists fully
supported the tsarist government’s home and foreign policies.

During the First World War the Octobrists, who saw that the
tsarist regime was unable to win the war, formed the “progressive bloc”,
an opposition group which demanded that a responsible Ministry
be set up, that is, a government enjoying the confidence of the
bourgeoisie and landed proprietors.

After the February revolution the Octobrists became a ruling
party and fought against the approaching socialist revolution.
Guchkov was War Minister in the first Provisional Government.
After the October Revolution the Octobrists fought against Soviet
rule.

[2]Reference is to the Third Congress of the Socialist-Revolutionary
Party, held in Moscow between late May and early June 1917.
The Congress revealed sharp differences between the party’s Right
and Left wings over certain issues, including that of the attitude
to the war, the Left S.R.s opposing the Provisional Government’s
policy of prolonging the war. The Central Committee was elected
on June 2 (15). In publishing the results of the vote it was stated
that many delegates had voted against electing A. F. Kerensky
to the Central Committee because he was overburdened with work
in the War and Naval ministries, that is, for practical and not
political reasons.

When Y. Breshko-Breshkovskaya (“Grandmother of the Russian
Revolution”), one of the founders and veteran members of the S.R.
Party, heard that Kerensky had not been elected, she construed that
as an intrigue and resigned from the S.R. Party’s Central
Committee in protest, making a relevant statement for the press.

[3]Zemlya i Volya (Land and Freedom)—a Socialist-Revolutionary
newspaper published in Moscow from March 1917 to May 1918.